Poppies

Popping Poppies

| FlowerAlley

Every year when the poppies pop, I walk through them in awe.

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How could they be this red? …this beautiful?  …this perfectly made?

I hope I never lose the feeling I get when looking into a poppy bloom.

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They are marvelous. They are spectacular.

How can a tiny black speck grow into such magnificence?

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Let me add the lesson the poppies have taught me.

I have planted them various places in my gardens over the years,

but they thrive in a place that I would prefer that they not grow.

They love the edge of our vegetable garden.

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Mr. Flower has to plow around them.  We have to plant around them.

We let them stay here because we love them so much.

My saying for me has been “Grow where you are planted”.

Now that I have young adult children, my saying for them is,

“Plant yourself where you can grow”.

The poppies taught me this.

They thrive and bloom best where they plant themselves,

NOT where Mama Flower sowed their seeds.

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POP goes the FLOWER!

Seeds in Sand

| FlowerAlley

I am ashamed to admit that I usually don’t mix my small seeds with sand.

It can be seen on my hand how this mix would better space the seeds.

Poppy seeds are also tiny and tend to blow while sown.

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This leads to over-crowding and the need to thin seedlings.

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Sometimes I wait too late to thin, which disrupts the roots of the plants left.

Last week I mixed my poppy seeds with sand before sowing them.

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I liked that I could see where I had sown the seeds.

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Hopefully, this year’s poppies will be less crowded than last year’s crop.

If I have given you my red, double “Bill Troutman” poppy seeds; you need to sow them soon.   They are early risers.

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FLOWER